EMT-T /combat medic. I just think that the emotional strain on skydivers losing friends can be reduced through education.

Yes, because I'm sure that everyone who hit the ground at high speed did so because they assumed CPR was like the reset button on their favorite video game.

I'm not sure what the point of your "lesson" is. Is it that any trained medical professionals on the DZ, including trained first responders should just chill out when they see a serious hit? Because I'm sure that'll make everyone feel better about watching their friend bounce.

ATTN skydivers: you cannot resuscitate someone who has hit an object with high force. high speed impact+no pulse = death. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (cpr) will not help.

There are many situations where CPR may be clearly futile. Often it is performed for the comfort of those in attendance and except when the body is damaged to a point where cpr is not possible or decapitation should be performed until EMS personal arrive on scene EVEN by trained off-duty personal on scene.

I would expect that the training for combat is different as continued CPR in a combat situation is a waste of resources and possibly dangerous. Every civillian first responder program I have been through (red cross first aid, CPR for professional rescuers, OEC WFR and EMT-B) teaches CPR even when clearly not effective should be performed. Except when there are others that could be helped, such as in a triage situation.

I think that would depend on how you define “blunt object strike”. Impact with the ground is not usually “blunt object”. For mechanism of injury you would be looking at speed of impact, angle of impact and first point of contact. You concern would be with deceleration injuries. These injuries could include a blow out of the aortic arch or tamponade. While these will more than likely prove fatal you have no way of determining if they are present in the field.

I'm not an experienced skydiver. I haven't even done my AFF yet. I have been a first aider for 15 years.

If there is anything at all you can do to give them a chance, even an infinitesimal one, you just get on and do it. You don't just do it for them. You do it for everyone around and, most of all, for yourself.

I would rather beat myself up for trying and failing than just standing there like a div.

I do believe that people who engage in extreme sports should undertake basic first aid training. You have to in scuba, if you want to progress. It should be an integral part of training. It's straightfoward, cheap, but it can make all the difference. Fingers crossed, you take the course and never have to use it. That's a hell of a lot better than needing to use it and never having taken the course.

This post should be deleted, it started off full of lies, and continued with garbage. You can perform CPR on a trauma code I personally have been on 2 scenes with saves that I know of. One was a motorcycle accident where the person rear ended a stopped truck, and was found under the vehicle, you could not even tell he still had a face, every time we bagged him blood sputtered every where. The other was a 30 foot fall to concrete on his head, upon intubation his pallet had been broken and there was dura matter inside his mouth. It can be successfully done, so if I'm in that position please don't listen to this guy until the er doc says stop!

So I'm not sure if you've been on the DZ during an incident before. I have been on several different ones for deaths or serious injuries that required immediate medical attention and ground or air ambulance trips. Every single time there have happened to be multiple trained first responders there. Medics, EMTs, military PAs, ER docs, ER nurses/NPs, etc. You get the picture. All of them bring much more to the situation than me or most of the rest of the people on the dropzone. And in every case I've seen, the untrained folks do one of two things. Stay out of the way, or provide other help -calling 911, getting gear out of the way, fetching medical kits for the trained folks, holding a canopy up for shade, etc. You seem to have a misconception that incident scenes are just random folks performing CPR on dead bodies.

Frankly, your harping on this point here and in Donny's incident thread just shows you're kind of obsessing on the wrong thing, and insulting both the medical credentials and the humanity of those who decided that trying to save their friend was the right thing to do in a single casualty situation.

This post should be deleted, it started off full of lies, and continued with garbage. You can perform CPR on a trauma code I personally have been on 2 scenes with saves that I know of. One was a motorcycle accident where the person rear ended a stopped truck, and was found under the vehicle, you could not even tell he still had a face, every time we bagged him blood sputtered every where. The other was a 30 foot fall to concrete on his head, upon intubation his pallet had been broken and there was dura matter inside his mouth. It can be successfully done, so if I'm in that position please don't listen to this guy until the er doc says stop!

Not to be a prick, but did either of those individuals return to a functioning life?

Sorry that was not directed AT you, just answered your question and made a statement saying its not right that the first person to get on scene try to play god and decide the fate of a a patient based off of their wants and feelings if they were in that situation.

A friend of mine had to make the decision to take the love of her life off life support after he was brought back at the scene of a skydiving accident. She has informed those who jump with her the most that she does not want to be resuscitated in the event of an accident.

Something to think about. If you don't want to be resuscitated for whatever reason, you need to let your friends and family know now. You may want to wear something while jumping that states this as well (MedicAlert bracelet perhaps), since your friends may not be the first responders.

The motorcycle guy doesnt sound like blunt force.. more like roadrash... You guys all make good points. Your right Sparky, Blunt force can be mistaken. I guess if it makes people feel hope than why not. Hook I wish I could meet Digby. I love beagles. Mine is a Papillon. Hes super fluffy.

A friend of mine had to make the decision to take the love of her life off life support after he was brought back at the scene of a skydiving accident. She has informed those who jump with her the most that she does not want to be resuscitated in the event of an accident.

Something to think about. If you don't want to be resuscitated for whatever reason, you need to let your friends and family know now. You may want to wear something while jumping that states this as well (MedicAlert bracelet perhaps), since your friends may not be the first responders.

In the event your friend does have an incident I would think that EMS would be called. When they arrive this will initiate treatment unless there is a valid “Do Not Resuscitate” statement for the victim on scene. A verbal statement to family and friends is not valid. In California you can down load a DSR form and leave it with DZ office. See attachment

Performing CPR on someone with a pulse (heart beating) could cause their heart to stop. I was taught that if someone's heart stops, you perform CPR (after dealing with the airway and any bleeding) and you carry on until someone takes over or a medical professional tells you to stop.

I usually carry a small first aid kit in my jump bag which includes several british military wound dressings (packed in plastic lined pouches - good for sucking chest wounds), hemastop, triangular bandage and a newspaper (useful for improvising a support collar when used with the triangular bandage) plus the normal assortment of plasters, disinfecting wipes and burn gel sheets.

you cannot resuscitate someone who has hit an object with high force. high speed impact+no pulse = death. ... I have a pup named Timothy. He is my son/;I love hm more thaqnk anything.l

How much force is "high force"? How blunt is a "blunt object". What if impact was a glancing blow? What if the object had some "give" to it instead of being rock hard? What if you didn't directly see the impact? What if you're wrong about judging how fast and how hard they hit? What if you're wrong about there being no pulse?

If your pup, which you love, suffered such an accident, would you do nothing to try and save him?

you cannot resuscitate someone who has hit an object with high force. high speed impact+no pulse = death. ... I have a pup named Timothy. He is my son/;I love hm more thaqnk anything.l

How much force is "high force"? How blunt is a "blunt object". What if impact was a glancing blow? What if the object had some "give" to it instead of being rock hard? What if you didn't directly see the impact? What if you're wrong about judging how fast and how hard they hit? What if you're wrong about there being no pulse?

If your pup, which you love, suffered such an accident, would you do nothing to try and save him?

It doesn't hurt to try.

This has been an interesting thread, largely because both sides have made good points. FlyingPortagee is partially correct in saying that that a pulseless vicitm of trauma is dead. Trauma surgeons will tell you,"Dead trauma is Dead!" But what is "Dead"?

Lack of a palpable pulse is not necessarily dead if there is a reversible reason for it, such as loss of blood or mechanical interference that prevents the heart from filling with blood (usually fluid or gas where it does not belong, compressing the heart so it cannot fill with blood).

It is also true that attempting CPR on an uresponsive, pulseless victim of blunt trauma may buy them some time, IF there is a reversible cause. And if they are truely dead, you can't hurt them by trying.

While there are documented cases of people surviving falling from great altitude, they are rare and involve factors that served to increase the distance over which they decelerated from terminal velocity. The simple fact is that a right angle impact with normal solid ground at 120 mph is seriously bad news. If the crater is a foot deep, the AVERAGE deceleration would be about 450G and if it is 6" it would be twice that. Survival in such a case is remote, at best.

On the other hand, the blunt trauma associated with misadventures involving high performance parachutes and low altitude canopy collisions or cutaways may well be survivable and CPR, if the victim is unresponsive and pulseless, is definitely appropriate.

Just remember that there may be spinal injuries and don't move the victim unless ABSOLUTELY necessary for safety reasons. If you MUST move them, immobilize the cervical spine to the best of your ability, perform CPR when you are out of immediate danger, pray, and, when the medics arrive, let them do their job.

For those interested in my credentials, I am a Board-certified Emergency Physician with 30+ years of experience including time in a Level-2 Trauma Center.

Ralph Johnson MD

PS: I wholeheartedly endorse learning CPR and basic Life Support and first aid. I have no doubt that most of you already have done so, but for those that have not, do it ASAP. You never know when your ability may be the only thing standing between another human being and the grave.

You don't know for sure unless you try. I would hope someone would try everything they could to revive a fallen friend. I would at least, instead of just saying "damn dude....you dead"

This.

I've done CPR on a friend (not skydiving related). It didn't work and he's dead. I seem to remember from class that CPR doesn't make any difference in the vast majority of cases, somewhere in the single digit percentages survive whatever the accident was.

I'm still going to do whatever I can to give someone any increased chance of surviving.

I'm not just going to stand there and say "He's dead, there's no point in trying." I want to be able to tell any friends or family that I did everything I could and that I didn't give up.

I wouldnt want my good friend trying to save me if i was dead. It just adds to the post traumatic stress for those trying to save. If your dead your dead, cover them up. How long would you do CPR for? 2 minutes? 30 minutes? an hour? You could die in a car wreck tomorrow. That's life. People die. Not trying to hurt anyones feelings. I watched 5 of my comrades burned alive trapped in a bradley. the one that got out died later of 3rd degree burns. Does that mean I jump in to try and save them? I thought about it. I had nightmares for months of being burned alive. I still do.

Your right Mr. Polite. I tell myself that all the time. This was a stupid thread. If your buddys down and you want to try to save him, go for it. I'm not a bad guy I just have a strange outlook on life. I seriously need to STFU and jump. Thats it. Absofreekinlutely.

I wouldnt want my good friend trying to save me if i was dead. It just adds to the post traumatic stress for those trying to save. If your dead your dead, cover them up. How long would you do CPR for? 2 minutes? 30 minutes? an hour? You could die in a car wreck tomorrow. That's life. People die. Not trying to hurt anyones feelings. I watched 5 of my comrades burned alive trapped in a bradley. the one that got out died later of 3rd degree burns. Does that mean I jump in to try and save them? I thought about it. I had nightmares for months of being burned alive. I still do.

So you want your friends and family to live with the question "Should we have done more?" or "Could we have saved him if we had tried to?"

I knew full well that I was probably wasting my time and energy doing CPR on my friend. I knew that it was probably hopeless. But I wasn't going to stand there and do nothing but watch him die. I wasn't going to live with those questions. And that was a help in dealing with my grief. I knew that I had done all that I could have done.

Not to minimize your pain in losing your comrades, but we aren't risking our lives in trying to save a gravely injured jumper. There's a big difference there.

ATTN skydivers: you cannot resuscitate someone who has hit an object with high force. high speed impact+no pulse = death. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (cpr) will not help.

Not being a jerk i hope, but what if you changed the word "someone" to your "best friend"? A first aid responders task is to maintain the condition of the injured until med help gets there. Ahhhh, bro joe hit blunt object just now, got any green bottles? take care, space

I hate your type. The kind to make assumptions on scene and act like your actions are solely for yourself. I was in a live tissue course where we would be presented with a pig or goat that was shot with multiple shotgun rounds (8 to 10), 9mm rounds and mass blunt force trauma. I could not tell if it was a goat or a pig for the first hr or so. We keeped that goat alive for four hrs untill the simulated medevac came.

Your are not a Dr and you can't declare anyone dead. Do your job and shut your mouth.

I just think that the emotional strain on skydivers losing friends can be reduced through education.

Because knowing that everything possible was done to save their friend (even if it was in vain) is somehow MORE traumatic than wondering there might have been the tiniest chance the outcome might have been different if someone had responded immediately?

Most EMT courses that I am aware of teach that there is a human/emotional side to every scene, and sometimes you do CPR or load and go with someone you know was DOA just for the family's piece of mind. So they can go to bed at night knowing that everything possible was done.

as an MD anesthesiologist, ACLS instructor and a member of the team that saved 1 skydiver in the field I wanted to say: You sir are an idiot. To anyone else who is interested in learning rescusitation - let me know and I'll be happy to call, email, post whatever. Please do not pay attention to this guy. Thanks

One thing you can remember: you cannot hurt anyone by doing CPR. Do it!

as an MD anesthesiologist, ACLS instructor and a member of the team that saved 1 skydiver in the field I wanted to say: You sir are an idiot. To anyone else who is interested in learning rescusitation - let me know and I'll be happy to call, email, post whatever. Please do not pay attention to this guy. Thanks

One thing you can remember: you cannot hurt anyone by doing CPR. Do it!

G-Bomb, Why are EMT's tought not to ? Ive asked a few medics, docs, and nurses and actually got alot of different responses which kind of scares me. I can't find any supporting documentaion to support my argument or yours. Can you help me ?

Well, I got some interest over PMs regarding this issue, so I'll give my opinion, bearing in mind that they are plentiful at DZ.com.

As to the source where different individuals get these "DNR" ideas, I'll tell you in detail: I don't know. I can only guess that the idea is: blunt force = ruptured big blood vessels in the chest = CPR will only bleed the victim out faster = No CPR. However, in this particular case doing CPR is NO WORSE than staring at them and doing nothing. Why don't OP enlighten us about pathophysiology of blunt force trauma? ... On the second thought, Let's not.

As far as American Heart Association goes - unresponsive people deserve CPR until they regain consciousness and care is escalated to get EMT, ambulance etc. One caveat - unresponsive guy on the couch Sunday morning in the hangar is not a CPR candidate, but rather need an "intervention" of the AA kind. One cannot judge from the outside +/- mechanism of injury if a victim can be resuscitated or not, but there aren't much alternatives. The newest AHA algorithms are simpler - not responsive and no spontaneous respiration - CPR. Once they wake up (ROSC - return of spontaneous circulation, evidenced by breathing, moving and/or swearing) they can be graduated to post-resuscitation care.

A word for people who had CPR class more than 4 yrs ago - the new guidelines allow for chest compression-only CPR if the provider is unable or unwilling to give rescue breaths. This was done because the lungs of the victim are usually full of oxygen that needs to be circulated with aid of compressions (unless it is a suffocation/drowning). Also, compression-only CPR is better than no CPR because bystander is too afraid to give rescue breaths. Additionally, uninterrupted chest compressions are shown superior because it takes several cycles of CPR to develop adequate pressure/blood flow and all this ground is lost with the smallest interruption in compressions. The compression rate is 100/min, with a useful memorization device being songs "another one bites the dust", or for the folks that jumped Capwells "staying alive" by Bee Gees. Please refrain from humming either during CPR, thoughDo not interrupt CPR for pulse checks as it wastes time. If DZ has an AED-defibrillator - use it. Some units can give cadence for CPR and feedback on compressions as well as possibly treat arrhythmia by shock. Call for help - soon. In my resuscitative effort at a boogie, someone was on the phone immediately to get help. Be aware of possible neck/back injury. Do not move the victim to take the rig/suit off unless absolutely necessary for CPR. Fear that EMTs will cut the rig/suit does not qualify, sorry. I wouldn't write this, but my own experience shows this is a prevalent issue.

Finally, next safety day - have DZO organize a BLS class. Invite an EMT or ACLS instructor. Figure out what will be the course of action if something happen.

I hope to never be in a situation where anyone I fly with needs my professional help. But those around me can count on this help being there if need be. How about you? Please ask questions, come by Skydive Monroe to chat, etc.